TL;DR
- New Guinea hosts >900 languages across ≥23 families; Australia is dominated by Pama–Nyungan—two halves of ancient Sahul with long-standing contact opportunities Greenhill 2015, Bouckaert–Bowern–Atkinson 2018.
- The Torres Strait is a live linguistic bridge: Meriam Mir (Papuan, Eastern Trans-Fly) and Kalaw Lagaw Ya (Australian, Pama–Nyungan) have centuries of tight interaction, bilingualism, and structural exchange Hunter 2011, Harvey 2021 LDD snapshot.
- Scholars who argued for deep Australia–PNG ties include Johanna Nichols (“Sahul as a linguistic area”), Reesink–Singer–Dunn (structural phylogenies showing hints of ancient connections), and earlier macro-proposals by Greenberg and Wurm Nichols 1997 in OUP vol., Reesink et al. 2009, Greenberg 1971, Wurm 1982.
- Geography helped: Australia and New Guinea were one landmass (Sahul) for most of the last 100 kyr; sea transgressions ~15–8 ka created Torres Strait but not a cultural firewall Malaspinas et al. 2016, Williams et al. 2018.
- Bottom line: contact is certain; deep relatedness is plausible-enough to keep testing—especially in the Strait and south-Papuan fringe—using lexicon, pronouns, and typology together Ross 2005, Bowern & Atkinson 2012.
What exactly are we comparing?#
Two massive, neighboring linguistic ecologies:
- Papua New Guinea & New Guinea region (PNG+): >900 languages, ≥23 families; the Trans–New Guinea (TNG) family is one of the world’s largest Greenhill 2015, PLOS One.
- Australia: dominated by the Pama–Nyungan family spanning ~90% of the continent; its internal structure and Holocene spread are now quantitatively modeled Bowern & Atkinson 2012; Bouckaert et al. 2018.
For most of the last glacial cycle, these were one landmass (Sahul); the subsequent inundation (≈15–8 ka) opened Torres Strait, a narrow, island‑studded corridor that continued to facilitate movement and exchange rather than sever it Malaspinas et al. 2016; Williams et al. 2018.
The Torres Strait as a linguistic bridge (not a wall)#
Centuries of trade, ritual, and kin ties across the Strait left crisp linguistic signatures. One side speaks an Australian language; the other, a Papuan language. They meet in songs, loanwords, and bilingual repertoires.
Two key languages in contact#
| Language | Affiliation | Where | Contact signals | Core references |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalaw Lagaw Ya (KLY; W/C Torres Strait) | Australian (Pama–Nyungan, Paman subgroup) | Western & Central islands (Saibai, Boigu, Dauan; Badu, Mabuyag, etc.) | Historical lingua franca in the region; heavy Papuan & Austronesian influence claimed in ethno-historic sources; ongoing bilingualism with MM and Creole | Harvey 2021 LDD snapshot; Hunter 2011 |
| Meriam Mir (MM; E Torres Strait) | Papuan (Eastern Trans-Fly) | Eastern islands (Mer, Dauar, Erub) | Cross-strait multilingualism; lexical traffic; ritual/song circulation | Harvey 2021 LDD snapshot; Hunter 2011 |
KLY’s classification as Pama–Nyungan is robust even while scholars document strong Papuan/Austronesian contact layers; MM is classified as Eastern Trans-Fly Papuan Harvey 2021; Hunter 2011. Ethnohistorical and community accounts place cultural and linguistic mixing over many generations; some analyses push organized KLY formation or restructuring into the mid–late Holocene, consistent with continuing cross-strait mobility after marine transgression Mitchell 2015; Williams et al. 2018.
Who has argued for a historical PNG–Australia connection?#
Not a fringe idea. Multiple lines of work—typology, structural phylogenies, comparative classification, and areal linguistics—frame Sahul as a coherent historical theater.
| Author(s) & year | Claim (short) | Mechanism / angle | Evidence cited |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johanna Nichols (1997) | Sahul as a linguistic area “sprung from two common sources” | Deep areality across late-Pleistocene/Holocene networks; diffusion across now-submerged shelves | Chapter in Archaeology and Linguistics (OUP); overviewed in Reesink et al. 2009, refs. 5 |
| Reesink, Singer & Dunn (2009) | Structural clustering shows Australian vs non-Austronesian blocks, with admixture and hints of ancient connections | Bayesian clustering of typological features | PLOS Biology |
| Greenberg (1971); Wurm (1982) | Bold Indo-Pacific macro-proposal (Papuan + Tasmanian + Andamanese; a few variants) situating Sahul/Near Oceania as historically linked | Macro-comparison (lexical + grammar) | Greenberg 1971; overview in Pawley 2009 |
| Ross (2005); Pawley (2005) | Firming up Trans–New Guinea; stabilizes the Papuan side of any cross-Sahul comparison | Pronoun diagnostics; comparative method | Cited in Greenhill 2015 |
| Hunter (2011); Harvey (2021) | Torres Strait as a high-contact zone uniting Papuan MM and Australian KLY | Contact linguistics; historical documentation | Hunter 2011; Harvey 2021 |
Afaict, this is the current “neutral-to-positive” reading: contact is certain, and there are credible typological signals consistent with deeper Sahul-era ties worth chasing with stricter comparative work Reesink et al. 2009.
How the pieces fit (mechanistically)#
- Opportunity: Sahul’s paleogeography knit northern Australia to southern New Guinea until ~8 ka; after inundation, short crossings via the Strait remained common Malaspinas et al. 2016; Williams et al. 2018.
- Engagement: Exchange networks produced contact‑induced change—loanwords, calques, genre‑specific styles (song/ritual), and perhaps subtle morphosyntax in KLY↔MM Hunter 2011.
- Background clades: The Papuan side coheres (TNG and neighbors), while Pama–Nyungan internal phylogeny/diffusion is increasingly resolved; both are prerequisites for testing any cross‑Sahul macro‑signals Greenhill 2015; Bowern & Atkinson 2012; Bouckaert et al. 2018.
- Typological convergences across Sahul: Region‑wide lexical/semantic patterns—e.g., colexification of fire and firewood across both Papuan and Australian languages—suggest a large diffusion area Schapper, San Roque & Hendery 2016, described here.
What follows from this (tests you can run rn)#
- Contact diagnostics in the Strait: Compile parallel KLY/MM lexica in seafaring, kinship, ritual; identify likely loans vs inherited cognates; check directionality against Papuan neighbors (Trans-Fly, Kiwai) Hunter 2011.
- Pronoun micro-comparisons: Use Ross-style pronominal paradigms as “quick phylogenetic tests” to constrain false positives in deep comparison Ross 2005, via Greenhill 2015 refs.
- Integrate structural + lexical phylogenies: Follow Reesink–Singer–Dunn’s structural clustering but ground-truth any “ancient signal” with hard cognate sets from curated databases (Chirila; TransNewGuinea.org) Bowern 2016; Greenhill 2015.
FAQ#
Q1. Who explicitly linked PNG and Australian languages at a Sahul‑wide scale?
A. Johanna Nichols framed Sahul as a linguistic area (1997), and Reesink–Singer–Dunn (2009) found hints of ancient connections via structural clustering; earlier, Greenberg/Wurm advanced macro‑proposals situating the region historically. See Nichols (1997), Reesink et al. (2009), Greenberg (1971), Wurm (1982).
Q2. Is there a textbook genealogical family uniting Australia with Papuan (TNG) rn?
A. No settled macro‑family; the positive case is contact certainty + typological signals. Firm clades exist within each side (Pama–Nyungan; TNG), which is the necessary baseline for any deeper test [Bowern & Atkinson 2012]; [Greenhill 2015].
Q3. Why obsess over the Torres Strait?
A. It’s the clearest bidirectional contact zone: a Papuan language (Meriam Mir) and an Australian language (KLY) in enduring contact, with rich ethnography and texts to mine [Hunter 2011]; [Harvey 2021].
Q4. Didn’t sea‑level rise kill the connection?
A. No. Sahul’s breakup (~15–8 ka) created the Strait, but archaeology, genetics, and linguistics all support ongoing mobility and exchange thereafter [Malaspinas et al. 2016]; [Williams et al. 2018].
Sources#
- Bowern, C. & Atkinson, Q. “Computational phylogenetics and the internal structure of Pama–Nyungan.” Language 88(4) (2012): 817–845. open-access PDF.
- Bowern, C. “Chirila: Contemporary and Historical Resources for the Indigenous Languages of Australia.” Language Documentation & Conservation 10 (2016): 1–44. OA.
- Bouckaert, R., Bowern, C., & Atkinson, Q. “The origin and expansion of Pama–Nyungan languages across Australia.” Nature Ecol. & Evol. 2 (2018): 741–749. PDF.
- Greenhill, S. “TransNewGuinea.org: An Online Database of New Guinea Languages.” PLOS ONE 10(10) (2015): e0141563. OA.
- Greenberg, J. “The Indo-Pacific Hypothesis.” In Linguistics in Oceania (1971): 807–876. doi:10.1515/9783111418827-021.
- Harvey, M. “Kalaw Kawaw Ya (Saibai) Language Snapshot.” Language & Linguistics in Melanesia 39 (2021). PDF.
- Hunter, T. “Reappraising the effects of language contact in the Torres Strait.” (2011) University of Queensland. OA thesis/article link.
- Malaspinas, A.-S. et al. “A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia.” Nature 538 (2016): 207–214. PDF.
- Mitchell, R. “Ngalmun Lagaw Yangukudu: The language of our homeland.” In Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture 8(1) (2015). catalog page.
- Nichols, J. “Sprung from two common sources: Sahul as a linguistic area.” In McConvell & Evans (eds.), Archaeology and Linguistics (1997). Cited and summarized in Reesink et al. 2009.
- Reesink, G., Singer, R., & Dunn, M. “Explaining the Linguistic Diversity of Sahul Using Population Models.” PLOS Biology 7(11) (2009): e1000241. OA.
- Ross, M. “Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages.” In Papuan Pasts (2005). Referenced via Greenhill 2015.
- Schapper, A., San Roque, L., & Hendery, R. “Tree, firewood and fire in the languages of Sahul.” (2016). Overviewed in RG abstract: link.
- Williams, A. N., Ulm, S., Turney, C. S. M., Rohde, D., & White, G. “Sea-level change and demography during the last glacial termination and early Holocene across the Australian continent.” (2018) accepted MS PDF.
- Wurm, S. A. The Papuan Languages of Oceania (1982). Backgrounded in Palmer (ed.) The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area (2017) overview page.